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10 Dec 2016 2:46:40am

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The church (and many laymen, I venture) confuses confessional issues with the responsibility of the overseers of priests to know what is going on, and especially when told by victims and family/friends of the criminal abuse of children. Parish priests and Bishops have a moral, legal and Christian duty to ascertain the facts about these issues in a prompt and thorough manner, outside the confessional, and then report the (prime facie) crime for further investigations and action by responsible legal authorities. Any other behaviour is obstruction of justice and, of more importance, exposing more children to criminal abuse and denying the urgent help that those abused need.